	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

October 12, 2016

Bobby Petrino

Greensboro, North Carolina

BOBBY PETRINO: We're coming off a bye week, which I thought came at a good time for us. I think our guys are anxious to get back on the game field on Friday night. It's going to be good to be back home. It seems like a long time since we've played at home. We're all excited about that. We're looking forward to playing a good Duke team, who does a great job of coaching and plays great defense and is continuing to get better on their offense.

Should be a good game Friday night.

Q. I was wondering if you could comment on what you've liked out of your tight ends coach Matt Lombardi the last couple seasons and why you wanted to bring him on board, and the relationship with his dad.
BOBBY PETRINO: Matt is a very good football coach. He really understands the game. He does a really nice job working with the tight ends and teaching and making sure they're prepared each week. He's also very good at breaking down defenses and does an excellent job in the press box. I couldn't be more happy than to have him with us.

Q. How has Jawon Pass been progressing over the last six weeks or so since the season started, and was he a guy that you guys used a lot to simulate Deshaun Watson a couple weeks ago?
BOBBY PETRINO: He does a great job. He's really getting better each week. He prepares to play each week, and one of the things that Jawon has shown since he got here is he does a great job with his attention to detail. He's a very good listener, really pays attention and gets better even when he's not taking reps.

He did not play on the scout team. He's been preparing and getting ready for games and continues to get reps with our first and second units.

Q. You're going up against a freshman quarterback who's been very good at times but who has also been kind of turnover prone at times. Is there something you can do as far as pressure or changing defenses to try to confuse a young guy like that, or do you play it pretty straight up?
BOBBY PETRINO: Well, with every quarterback you try to give him different looks. Sometimes you try to give him different pre-snap looks and move once the ball has been snapped. Sometimes you stem and change. We've just got to do a good job of playing fast and being able to get pressure on him with a four-man rush, a five-man rush, and sometimes bringing six guys.

Q. You watched tape of teams; I know you have a lot of tape from Duke, but was last week's tape pretty useful as far as preparation because of the conditions you saw?
BOBBY PETRINO: Yeah, the conditions made it hard on the offense and to really evaluate Duke's offense. They're playing the wishbone with their defense. Sometimes you have to take games from earlier in the year and make them in your cut-ups and your breakdowns and not the one they just played the previous week.

Q. Does Notre Dame, that tape maybe help?
BOBBY PETRINO: Yeah, that's a good tape. They played really well in the Notre Dame tape.

Q. What did you learn about your team during the bye week? Did you learn anything new about your squad?
BOBBY PETRINO: Yeah, we got a lot of pride on our team. You know, it's always hard when you lose a very hard-fought contest, but I think we're working as hard as we can on bouncing back. They've shown a lot of resiliency and have come to practice and worked hard, been good in the meeting rooms, and we continue to have good leadership from within the team.

So that gives us a chance to get become to where we know how to play and really excel here in the last part of the season.

Q. I know Al was talking earlier about Duke and their freshman quarterback; what else are you seeing on Duke's squad? They're 3-3, beat Notre Dame, lost a couple heartbreaker games in the middle of that. What do you see on tape that might give you problems Friday night?
BOBBY PETRINO: Yeah, they're just a very well-coached football team. They do things right. They play with great techniques and fundamentals. Their schemes are very sound and they execute them well. They're a very smart football team. We need to go out and play the type of football we're capable of playing.

Q. To go back to the bye week and just to -- in that first loss coming right before the bye week, how much time you spent on it, what you took away from it, and if it was kind of the perfect time for the bye week because of what happened right before?
BOBBY PETRINO: Yeah, I think it was a good time for the bye week for us because of the intensity of the games we played early in the season. You know, Florida State, Clemson, and you know, traveling to Marshall, going to Syracuse. I think it gave us a chance to rest up a little bit, get healthy, get refreshed physically and mentally.

I did like the way our guys worked. They came with a good attitude to improve and get better and gave us good effort. That should help us in our preparation for Friday night.

Q. And then as far as -- I know you spoke on Duke and what they're capable of, but to speak on their head coach David Cutcliffe, what he's done to really turn that program into something special, just what you can say about his level of coaching that he has.
BOBBY PETRINO: Oh, he's just a great football coach. I've been studying David for a long, long time. Early in my career he was one of the best quarterback coaches known out there and a great offensive coordinator. I remember studying a lot of what he did at Tennessee, a lot of what he did at Ole Miss. I've got tremendous respect for him, and he came into Duke and changed the culture there and made football very, very important to everybody.

Q. Just wondering if anybody has ever approached you either at Louisville or other schools about doing one of these season inside or all-access series like Florida State is doing and what you see as the benefits and drawbacks of them.
BOBBY PETRINO: No, I don't think we've been approached on that. I'm not really sure what the benefit or drawbacks is or whether I would be interested in doing it.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297